WIP: Beginnings Are Hard

Wednesday

In the morning, my little girl went to spend the morning with her grandparents, so that gave me some breathing room. In the afternoon, we went to my regular marketing meeting, and that was slow because I need less talking and more doing. In the evening, I had designs on getting more work done, but that didn’t work out.

I wish the pace of content creation was faster, but overall I’m very happy with how things are coming together. I’m very close to fully understanding what it is I need to do (other than write books), and closer all the time to having all that infrastructure in place. I don’t mention it every day in this space, but I do work every day on those two problems, and when I step back and look at the big picture of what I’m trying to do, and who I’m trying to be, I’m surprised and impressed with how close I’m getting.

So, there’s that.

Vampires Versus Comicon

In the beginning of this book, as in the beginning of most books, readers know nothing. For some stories (Long Way Home comes to mind), not knowing what is going on is part of the fun. For many, however, including this one, it is very important to ground the reader in time and place and situation, as well as providing the details necessary for them to visualize the characters, in the opening chapters—all while getting things rolling and not bogging down. That’s challenging—not the hardest or most unpleasant work, and kind of fun and interesting, but challenging nonetheless—but the worst part is that progress as measured by words per hour is slow, and that makes it feel like spinning wheels. All the detail also tends to make the scenes and chapters longer than those that follow, which can make them feel heavy. In contrast, scenes in the middle are quicker because they only have to refer to or build on the established baseline, and the ending scenes can absolutely fly.

Which is a long way of saying that my time and mental energy today didn’t produce a satisfying product of words.

And what’s worse, when I look at the projects I have planned and their optimal production times, I’m tempted to shuffle this project to the back of the pile. If I don’t want that to happen, I’d better get it done soon.

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